Despite some denials awhile back from Bethesda Software that the next chapter in the Fallout series would take place in Boston, we are now hearing that Bethesda has filed for a trademark in the German Patent and Trademark Office for two new titles.

The first of which is Fallout: Shadow of Boston which is the same thing that was seen on IMDB sometime ago. The second is for what is believed to be a remaster of the previous Fallout releases which is called Fallout: Ultimate Collection. It is thought that the Ultimate Collection will be a re-release targeted primarily for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

It is unknown if the Ultimate Collection will get a remastering in HD or if it will strictly be a conversion from the existing titles, but since the Fallout was released on the PC for Windows, it is quite possible that a HD remaster is in the cards.

So far we have heard no official word from Bethesda, but several sources have told us that they believe an announcement is coming soon. Could be that it is planned for the Spike TV Video Game awards show that is held in December.

Developer Obsidian Entertainment has apparently been hit by another round of layoffs. While the company will not comment, a number of former employees are commenting. The studio is best known for its last release, which was Fallout: New Vegas.

The numbers of this round of layoffs seem to vary, depending on which information you are going with; but it does look like this latest round of layoffs has affected at least 20 to 30 employees. The reason for the layoffs is also not clear.

If the whispering that we are hearing turns out to be true, the loss of jobs is due to the cancellation of the next-gen project the company had been working on. It is unknown what this next-gen title was, but a large number of people apparently have an idea of what it might have been. So far, however, no one has whispered to us what it was.

The developer was working on a new South Park title, and right now it seems that work on that title continues for the time being. It is not known if the developer has any other projects going right now.

The announced Lonesome Road downloadable content package for Fallout: New Vegas has now been confirmed as delayed. Bethesda claims that circumstances outside their control led to the delay.

While Lonesome Road was on the road map to arrive in July, we have now learned and it has since been confirmed that it will be bumped till September. While Bethesda has released some footage from Lonesome Road, it hardly seems to be something that can’t wait till it is completed.

When it finally arrives in September it will go for $10, or 800 Microsoft Points. It is being released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

The hacker group Anonymous, which has been at the centre of some of the most famous hacks in the last few months, appears to have splintered, with one of the factions attacking the primary communications channel in an attempt to decentralize the outfit.

The “splinter group” has seized control of two websites used by Anonymous to organise their various distributed denial of service (DdoS). The channels are AnonOps.net and AnonOps.ru, both of which host the Internet relay chat (IRC) channels used by Anonymous members.

One of the AnonOps network staff, who goes by the name “Ryan,” told Thinq that he and a number of other disaffected Anonymous members seized control of the sites because they believed the group had become too centralized. Some members had been “behind-the-scenes string-pulling” that allowed these Anons to assume leadership positions in the previously headless organization. Before now, it has been widely stated that Anonymous has no central leadership, a tactic used to limit the ability of law enforcement (or anyone else, for that matter) from discovering Anonymous members’ real identities, or infiltrating their operations.

Members of Anonymous claim that Ryan is threatening to use an 800,000-computer-strong botnet to attack AnonOps, if they are able to take back the site from the splinter group. They claimed he was “dangerous,” prone to “outbursts,” and “arrogant and narcissistic.”

The version 1.3 patch for the Xbox 360 version of Fallout New Vegas apparently did have a number of stability problems that affected many players that led to system crashes when they were loading save files. The issue has now been fixed and the team at Bethesda Softworks says that it is safe to download.

However, Bethesda did issue a warning that users might want to hold off until the patch was fixed. Now that the problem is being resolved, it is a recommended patch that Xbox 360 players of the game should apply.

Right now, the 1.3 fixed patch for the Xbox 360 is only available for the English version of the game, but other language versions should be available soon.

Bethesda continues to address issues with Fallout: New Vegas by remaining committed to releasing patches to correct problems with the title. When the game was initially released, users were very vocal about the fact that the game was buggy and had a number of glitches; of course, some analysts have claimed that this has both hurt sales and led to much dissatisfaction with the game.

Still, Bethesda has been plodding along and releasing patch after patch to address issues. The latest huge patch for New Vegas has already been released for PlayStation 3 users and will arrive for Xbox 360 and PC owners at some point early next week.

The latest patch brings the code of the game up to version 1.02 and features a number of fixes and addresses many problems related to completing various quests in the game. From what we have been able to tell from the published fixes, it could be the most comprehensive fixes for New Vegas and perhaps will finally address the majority of the issues that users have had with the title. While it would have been nice for the game to be released in this condition, it is nice to see the amount of attention that Bethesda has paid to resolving these problems.

The sales numbers for Fallout: New Vegas have arrived, and you can almost see the smiles on the faces at Bethesda as they have confirmed that they have shipped over 5 million units. The news is even more surprising, considering that the game has been criticized for the number of bugs the title had at release.

Bethesda claims that an upcoming patch will address the bug issues and fix the majority of the issues that players are complaining about. It is unknown when the patch will arrive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC versions of the title.

We do know, however, that sales don’t seem to be slowing down; and Bethesda is confirming that retailers are already ordering more copies to keep it in stock over the holiday season.